Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[explora mars(2.1.0)beta]

There's *a lot* of waiting between 93% and 100% when the game is loading. I actually thought it's broken, but it loads within a minute or so. The game is pretty simple, why is the loading taking that long (and in its final 7%)?

As for the game… in its current stage, it's not very entertaining. Collecting artefacts on the surface of Mars has potential, but as of now, the movement is too slow, the game is perhaps too much zoomed in on the player (so you don't see a lot of the surroundings), the roads we're supposed to follow are barely visible, the UI is essentially just plain black text (all lowercase) etc.

I think for the future versions, you ought to first:
– fix the loading (because most people will think the game froze and leave)
– make the searching for artefacts entertaining (easier said than done, I know)
　　– more diverse environment? (obstacles, traps, different kinds of terrain)
　　– enemies? (something hunting you, attempting to stop you from finding the artefacts)
　　– better movement, zoom out so we can see better

Good luck!

harrytubestudios responds:

thanks i will be working on an update thanks

[we need more likes]

Well, that's interesting.
Finally, a clicker which isn't just about mindless clicking but also requires some thought process. Also, from a technical standpoint, it's really impressive that the entire game is essentially a single shader.

pinklul responds:

thanks xD

[Parodi fnaf]

Well, you're really parodying FNAF, it's more like a knockoff. You're not poking fun at its elements or the idea, you're doing the same with fewer features and cheaper graphics.

At first, I didn't think there's anything interactive in the game, until I found the green button does something. It should give a visual response when you click it (or change cursor, play a sound…).
I don't believe you can close or open the door.
'Time' indicator in the top-left corner doesn't show anything and 'mbl' (whatever that acronym means) goes into negative. And when you run out of energy, the screen goes completely dark and you can't really do anything (or see anything) ever again – but you can still win if you wait for a while.
Despite not knowing what to do, I still somehow won, so the difficulty isn't probably very high.
And after you win, the game doesn't reset and you keep winning in short order.

Nevertheless, it's a complete game which can be started, played and won; which isn't saying much, but it's something.

[Paddle Game]

I could literally copy & paste your Author Comments and it would work as a review.
It's a pretty simple game with one gameplay mechanic and a ball slow enough to always give you plenty of time to position yourself to bounce it back.
The speed doesn't increase and nothing more happens in the game, so yeah, exactly – the challenge of this game is to keep playing despite the increasing boredom.

[Presidential Speech Generator]

‘I, Periwinkle, under the watchful Leg of Bhaal…’

It's hilarious. Good idea.
Perhaps it would be nice to know if you're supposed to write in a verb or a noun to avoid blunders like: ‘I will Guns and I will Law’ – but perhaps it makes it funnier? You could change the case of the words to lowercase though, if they're in the middle of the sentence (except the name fields of course).

You might want to forbid submitting the form until you fill in everything, otherwise, it will result in incorrectly placed commas and a lot of blanks and gaps.
And there's probably supposed to be ‘years’ in ‘my first 7 in office’ (and what if a large number resulted in a different text, implying the policy would never be implemented?).

It would be nice if there was more than one template – e.g. 3-4 which are worded a bit differently and the entered words are used in a different meaning.

‘I want to thank my supporters, you have all been boring throughout this campaign.’
It's about time we had a sarcastic president.

Anyway, thanks for the chuckle and ‘I wish you nothing but Dog in the future’. :)

Little-Rena responds:

It was supposed to say "days" after the number, but I forgot to actually write that in! Whoops!

I find it far more amusing when people go in blind, not knowing what their words will do! Thanks for the input!

[SquisI]

This is procedurally generated, right?
I don't see the appeal of randomly placed blocks in this case; it would be far more interesting to handmake levels with carefully and logically places walls, obstacles and barriers – to make the player think and pay attention.
Currently, it takes no effort to win a level and all of them are mostly the same.

And since the levels are randomly generated and there's an infinite number of them; the scoreboard doesn't really make much sense. The players compete in different levels, so their starting conditions aren't the same and they can also play as long as they wish, so it's not really “who's best”, rather “who kept playing for the longest time”.

Also, the random placement isn't flawless – I've seen the block being placed halfway off the screen, almost covered by a blue block – and I quit when I reached a level in which the green block wasn't visible at all.

Procedural generation increases replayability at the cost of making the first playthrough much less interesting – because even though the level design is 'varied', it's never 'clever'.
Add more rules to the random generator to make the levels more challenging and consider adding different kinds of obstacles/enemies than just the blue block which gets boring pretty quickly.

[Shooty Land]

A fine, simple game; although I think it is a bit hard and unfriendly to newcomers. You lose when you miss, but you also don't see the angle of the gun before you shoot. That way, you're going to lose a couple of times before you memorise the trajectories of the three poses.
I'd switch to mouse controls. Keep the three poses, but move between them by moving the mouse up and down. And shoot with a left-click. That way, the players would still fast enough to react to incoming enemies, but would also know which way they're going to shoot.

Also, since you don't use the left half of the screen, you could crop it, so the player would stand at the left side and there would be no unused space.

I didn't need the 'middle' shoot – I just waited and used the 'up' shot when the enemy was closer. The enemy coming from the top is thus effectively the hardest one and the most likely reason you'll fail. You can shoot the two enemies in lower layers when they come close to you, but there's only a short window of opportunity to kill the top one. And since the enemies keep getting faster, the window gets smaller and smaller.
I would try to balance the enemies and make them equally hard – e.g. make the top enemy slower and the bottom enemy faster.

Oh, and if you add +38 to your vertical resolution (to compensate for the WebGL footer) in Newgrounds Project Settings, the game window will stop being 'cut off' at the top and the bottom. Or use 'Minimal' WebGL Template if you don't need the fullscreen button.

It's a simple game, really, so there's not much to talk about. If you kept the same screen size as now and moved the player to the left, it might give you more space to add things like different enemies, collectables/power-up etc. – but then it also would be harder to properly aim and shoot, if there were still only three fixed poses.
For a game jam entry, this is good, but if you wanted to spend more time with it, you could improve it further.

ViggeBoi responds:

Thanks for your feedback!
I really appreciate it.

[Cube The Game DEMO]

I wrote down some notes without a specific order as I played.
Generally, it's a good game. The gravity is lower than you'd expect, which can sometimes help you to control your movement better; sometimes it can also kill you because you don't fall fast enough to avoid danger. The graphics are a bit placeholder-ish (this would usually be the first step to test that all mechanics work before adding "proper", "serious" sprites) and the chosen resolution is too large.
But for a first game, it's pretty good – a fine, enjoyable game without serious problems.

– Control responsiveness
I don't know how you detect being "on the ground", but it's not without flaws. Sometimes it didn't allow me to jump immediately after landing, or from the very edge (a big no-no for platformers), but it's perfectly fine to jump (or rather continue jumping) by sliding under a platform
https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/62e49aa39a9e708add22c77e97e814c2
Again, I don't know which method you use, but in platformers, it usually more reliable to detect the ground using raycasts (instead of colliders or something), as demonstrated here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbWK8bCAU2w&list=PLFt_AvWsXl0f0hqURlhyIoAabKPgRsqjz&ab_channel=SebastianLague
– Moonlike gravity
Regular gravity would be "faster", but if you prefer it like this, it's okay. It allows you to make longer and more complicated jumps in exchange for the intensity/speed/flow of the game.
Of course, don't change it now, as it would require balancing and redesigning the levels.
– 1920×1080 resolution on the web results in a huge window which doesn't fit on anybody's screen. Add a fullscreen button instead (or simply change the WebGL Template from 'Minimal' to 'Standard' which comes with a built-in fullscreen button). Also, this game consists only from squares and rectangles, so it doesn't need a resolution *that* huge.
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Screen-fullScreen.html
– Is it a good idea to have a character in the same colour as the ground and the platforms? It will probably look better if the protagonist has a unique, different colour than the environment.
– I like the death explosion effect. It's important to have a slight delay after dying to allow the player to comprehend what exactly happened before restarting the level
– Jump button pressed longer = jump higher → great!
Perhaps you could add a different sound for a higher jump to distinguish them. And bouncing on a trampoline doesn't make any noise, but it should since it's technically jumping, too.
– Quit button is useless in a WebGL game. It does nothing and if somebody wants to quit the game, they'll close the tab
– If a trampoline is only one-sided (e.g. in the second trampoline level, where the upper side of the large trampoline doesn't bounce you, only the lower side), it ought to be two-coloured (to let you know which side works as you'd expect)
– You could add medals if you want. A little extra work, but it's worth it because it will lure in more players and make them more likely to finish the game once they start.
https://bitbucket.org/newgrounds/newgrounds.io-for-unity-c/
– Sometimes there's a tiny gap between you and the platform, sometimes you touch seamlessly.
– The difficulty gradually increases and some of the later levels are quite cool

Overall, for a first game, I think it's pretty good.
Well done and good luck with your future projects. :)

NK-NicKy-01 responds:

Thanks for your review, here are a couple things I'm gonna answer:

The reason you sometimes don't jump from platforms is cuz there's an empty object with a radius of 0.01 units which determines if you're on the ground, I watched Blackthornprod's vid on platformers, and I didn't know any other way...

also, that gif... idk how that happened to you, but it doesn't happen to me...

The gravity: yea idk I didn't change anything, so it's pretty default...

The resolution: I tried changing it, but the screen doesn't resize, so I have a lot to learn about the camera and resolutions and stuff in Unity...

Yeah it probably would've been better to make the player a different color, that also applies to the jumping platforms

the previous death effect just reset the level instantly, but I learned about particles and delays and I improved it a lot

the long jump used to be a double jump, but since it made levels way too easy, I decided to make it a long jump, glad you like it!

the quit button is meant for the downloadable full version, but I left it here anyways...

Yeah, I'm still new to Newgrounds, so I can't add medals, but I'll keep it in mind for next time...

The tiny gaps are due to weird colliders...

I'm glad you like the newer levels!


Welp, thanks for your review!

[Cube Zombies]

Well, it's good. A fine concept with appropriately chosen music and sound effects. I really like that there are multiple environments (grass, snow…) but I don't think there's a gameplay difference between them which is a pity. I like snow the most because it's the most well-lit area. In the other, the ground isn't even visible without your flashlight.

Let's get the bugs out of the way first:
– Enemies don't harm you AT ALL. Therefore it's impossible to lose and while writing this, I'm getting surrounded by a *horde* of enemies. To your credit, they push you all over the place, but not once did I fall out of the boundaries of the world, so the game still keeps going.
– Pause doesn't actually pause the game, it just shows the menu. Did you mean to set Time.timeScale to zero or something?

As for improvements:
– I think it's too dark. Nothing should be that much shrouded in darkness, everything should be lit at least to a certain amount. Especially the player character, not just the light cone in front of him.
– There should be some sort of visual response from killing a zombie – e.g. popping up. Now it seems it just stops – but when there are many zombies onscreen, you wouldn't even notice you shot a zombie if it wasn't for the increasing counter
– You probably should be able to reach the edge of the world "plane". There could be an environmental barrier just like it is in the middle between different areas.

Suggestions:
– Give us a reason to explore, such as items appearing somewhere on the map. E.g. temporary powerups (increased damage, wider shot), health replenishment.
– Different kinds of enemies appearing over time.